Carden retires as Wood girls’ soccer coach

By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI | The Winchester Star

Jun 15, 2018

WINCHESTER — Jim Carden has enough memories to probably fill a couple books in 44 years of coaching, and his unofficial introduction to the James Wood girls’ soccer program is one of those that would probably make the cut.

“I stopped in Sheetz, and this girl was working there and had a James Wood soccer shirt on,” said Carden in a phone interview on Wednesday. “I said, ‘Oh, you play soccer.’ She said yes, and I asked who was going to be the team’s next coach. She said, ‘I don’t know, but we hear it might be some old guy from Handley.’

“When I had the first meeting in the auditorium, I can see her face, and I went, ‘You were 100 percent right.’”

The “old guy” certainly showed that he hadn’t lost his touch over the last 11 years as James Wood’s head coach.

The 75-year-old Carden announced last month that he’s officially done with high school coaching after taking the Colonels to heights that the program had never experienced.

In the first 11 years of the James Wood girls’ soccer program, it never had a winning season.

While Carden didn’t match his wildly successful tenure at Handley (184-45-9 record, and seven state tournament berths from 1994 to 2005 with the boys’ team), in his fifth season he directed James Wood to its first-ever regional tournament berth. In his seventh season, the Colonels won their first-ever Northwestern District title.

Carden first informed his players of his retirement at the regular-season finale against Fauquier on May 15. The public found out three days later in an announcement prior to the team’s Class 4 Northwestern District first round tournament game against Liberty at Handley.

“I told [the players] that I just can’t give them every day what I think I should give them,” said Carden, who also serves as the director of the Winchester United club program, a role he has held since 1999. “As the year went on, I found it harder and harder to maintain the level I wanted to maintain with them. I felt my body couldn’t take doing a lot of things that I did 10 years ago.

“I really didn’t plan on staying 11 years. I figured three, four. But time goes by, and we kept getting better all the time. But every good thing comes to an end, and it’s just time.”

Carden also wanted to put the next James Wood head coach in a position to succeed. He hopes that coach is Donavan Russell, his assistant this year and a former player for Carden with Winchester United in the 1990s.

Russell’s daughter Lauren was a junior on this year’s Colonels. His son Ethan — who just finished his sophomore year — is a Region I Olympic Development Program goalkeeper for the 2002 (birth year) age group.

“I felt I was going to leave [the next coach] with the cupboard fairly full, with 18 [players] coming back,” Carden said. “I’m pulling for [Russell] with everything I’ve got, because I know he’s the right person for the job.”

After retiring from Handley in 2005, Carden came out of retirement in November of 2007 in order to coach James Wood in the spring of 2008.

Carden’s overall record at James Wood wound up being 78-90-17, but over the last eight years the Colonels consistently have been competitive.

There was only one year in that time in which James Wood finished more than two games under .500, and this year the Colonels went 10-8 for the school’s first-ever season with double-digit wins (the 2014 district champions went 9-4-4).

James Wood’s season ended in the semifinals with a loss to eventual tournament champion Kettle Run.

“Since he arrived there, every game that you’re playing in, you have to be prepared,” said Sherando 19th-year head coach Rob Kilmer. “They’re very well-organized. You better be prepared and better be ready, because if not, they’re going to get you. I think that’s a testament to him.”

Carden said two things stick out when it comes to his coaching career.

“You have to teach discipline, and you have to have a mutual respect for each other,” Carden said. “If you teach the right foundation of any game, winning takes care of itself. I think my players bore that out.”

Carden said on Wednesday it takes “three to five years to start a program on the right track.” That being said, he’ll always be grateful for the players he had in his first two years at James Wood. Carden said he did not have any seniors on his first team.

“It takes a while to learn how to win,” Carden said. “A lot of our Handley teams might not have been the best teams, but they knew how to win, and they felt they were going to win every game. There was no doubt in their mind.

“At James Wood, the feeling was, ‘Can we even stay in the game?’ at first. But I had those players two years before any of them graduated, and they really set the tone the second year. We won [seven games, after winning five the previous year]. But it wasn’t the wins. You could see we had turned the corner, and we started believing in ourselves that we could do this. We were no longer going to get run over by teams.”

There were a lot of other great moments for Carden at James Wood over the years, but his last win is something he’ll cherish.

Because of the heavy rain that hit the area on May 18, James Wood’s tournament game with Liberty was moved to Handley. Carden used to joke to his wife Lynn that he always felt like he was on the wrong side of the field whenever he coached the Colonels at the Handley Bowl, but for that game he and his players were on the home side.

The game was a mix of the two programs he loves, and Carden got to watch his team play masterfully in a 3-1 victory that finally gave the program a 10-win season.

“That was a trying moment for me [because of the retirement announcement], but a happy moment for me, because they wanted that 10 wins,” Carden said.

Carden — whose coaching career began in 1975 in Connecticut — said the time he’s spent coaching at Handley and James Wood since 1994 have meant everything to him.

In addition to the seven state tournament berths, Carden’s Handley teams won seven Northwestern District titles and six Region II titles, and he was selected to coach in the Virginia High School League all-star game three times. His coaching awards include five Group AA state coach of the year selections and the Washington Post’s All-Met Coach of the Year in 1999.

On Wednesday, Carden expressed appreciation for a number of people that he worked with, including former Handley athletic directors Jimmy Omps, who hired Carden in 1994, Ron Lindon, and Todd Hill; and James Wood coordinator of student activities Craig Woshner. He also appreciates Lynn, his wife of 52 years, for being as supportive as she’s been throughout his career.

And of course, he’ll always appreciate the effort his players gave him over the years.

“How many people get a chance to work with terrific young people?” Carden said. “And I mean terrific. The awards and everything, they got that. I didn’t get that. My players gave me a lot more than I gave them.

“At Wood, the kids were just fantastic. People will say it’s easier when you’re winning. Well, it was just as easy at James Wood [as it was at Handley] with my girls. It’s just unbelievable that God gave me a chance to be where I was at that time, and help in some little way to mold these girls and boys. I wouldn’t give up the memories I’ve had with them for anything.”

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